SLUICE ROBBERS
“We must have money,” said Glenister a few days later. “When McNamara
jumped our safe he put us down and out. There’s no use fighting in this
court any longer, for the Judge won’t let us work the ground ourselves,
even if we give bond, and he won’t grant an appeal. He says his orders
aren’t appealable. We ought to send Wheaton out to ’Frisco and have him
take the case to the higher courts. Maybe he can get a writ of
supersedeas.”
“I don’t rec’nize the name, but if it’s as bad as it sounds it’s sure
horrible. Ain’t there no cure for it?”
“It simply means that the upper court would take the case away from this
one.”
“Well, let’s send him out quick. Every day means ten thousand dollars to
us. It ’ll take him a month to make the round trip, so I s’pose he ought
to leave to-morrow on the _Roanoke_.”
“Yes, but where’s the money to do it with? McNamara has ours. My God!
What a mess we’re in! What fools we’ve been, Dex! There’s a conspiracy
here. I’m beginning to see it now that it’s too late. This man is
looting our country under color of law, and figures on gutting all the
mines before we can throw him off. That’s his game. He’ll work them as
hard and as long as he can, and Heaven only knows what will become of
the money. He must have big men behind him in order to fix a United
States judge this way. Maybe he has the ’Frisco courts corrupted, too.”
“If he has, I’m goin’ to kill him,” said Dextry. “I’ve worked like a dog
all my life, and now that I’ve struck pay I don’t aim to lose it. If
Bill Wheaton can’t win out accordin’ to law, I’m goin’ to proceed
accordin’ to justice.”
During the past two days the partners had haunted the court-room where
their lawyer, together with the counsel for the Scandinavians, had
argued and pleaded, trying every possible professional and
unprofessional artifice in search of relief from the arbitrary rulings
of the court, while hourly they had become more strongly suspicious of
some sinister plot--some hidden, powerful understanding back of the
Judge and the entire mechanism of justice. They had fought with the fury
of men who battle for life, and had grown to hate the lines of
Stillman’s vacillating face, the bluster of the district-attorney, and
the smirking confidence of the clerks, for it seemed that they all
worked mechanically, like toys, at the dictates of Alec McNamara. At
last, when they had ceased, beaten and exhausted, they were too confused
with technical phrases to grasp anything except the fact that relief was
denied them; that their claims were to be worked by the receiver; and,
as a crowning defeat, they learned that the Judge would move his court
to St. Michael’s and hear no cases until he returned, a month later.
Meanwhile, McNamara hired every idle man he could lay hand upon, and
ripped the placers open with double shifts. Every day a stream of
yellow dust poured into the bank and was locked in his vaults, while
those mine-owners who attempted to witness the clean-ups were ejected
from their claims. The politician had worked with incredible swiftness
and system, and a fortnight after landing he had made good his boast to
Struve, and was in charge of every good claim in the district, the
owners were ousted, their appeals argued and denied, and the court gone
for thirty days, leaving him a clear field for his operations. He felt a
contempt for most of his victims, who were slow-witted Swedes, grasping
neither the purport nor the magnitude of his operation, and as to those
litigants who were discerning enough to see its enormity, he trusted to
his organization to thwart them.
The two partners had come to feel that they were beating against a wall,
and had also come squarely to face the proposition that they were
without funds wherewith to continue their battle. It was maddening for
them to think of the daily robbery that they suffered, for the Midas
turned out many ounces of gold at every shift; and more maddening to
realize the receiver’s shrewdness in crippling them by his theft of the
gold in their safe. That had been his crowning stroke.
“We MUST get money quick,” said Glenister. “Do you think we can borrow?”
“Borrow?” sniffed Dextry. “Folks don’t lend money in Alaska.”
They relapsed into a moody silence.
“I met a feller this mornin’ that’s workin’ on the Midas,” the old man
resumed. “He came in town fer a pair of gum boots, an’ he says they’ve
run into awful rich ground--so rich that they have to clean up every
morning when the night shift goes off ’cause the riffles clog with
gold.”
“Think of it!” Glenister growled. “If we had even a part of one of those
clean-ups we could send Wheaton outside.”
In the midst of his bitterness a thought struck him. He made as though
to speak, then closed his mouth; but his partner’s eyes were on him,
filled with a suppressed but growing fire. Dextry lowered his voice
cautiously:
“There’ll be twenty thousand dollars in them sluices to-night at
midnight.”
Glenister stared back while his pulse pounded at something that lay in
the other’s words.
“It belongs to us,” the young man said. “There wouldn’t be anything
wrong about it, would there?”
Dextry sneered. “Wrong! Right! Them is fine an’ soundin’ titles in a
mess like this. What do they mean? I tell you, at midnight to-night Alec
McNamara will have twenty thousand dollars of our money--”
“God! What would happen if they caught us?” whispered the younger,
following out his thought. “They’d never let us get off the claim alive.
He couldn’t find a better excuse to shoot us down and get rid of us. If
we came up before this Judge for trial, we’d go to Sitka for twenty
years.”
“Sure! But it’s our only chance. I’d ruther die on the Midas in a fair
fight than set here bitin’ my hangnails. I’m growin’ old and I won’t
never make another strike. As to bein’ caught--them’s our chances. I
won’t be took alive--I promise you that--and before I go I’ll get my
satisfy. Castin’ things up, that’s about all a man gets in this vale of
tears, jest satisfaction of one kind or another. It ’ll be a fight in
the open, under the stars, with the clean, wet moss to lie down on, and
not a scrappin’-match of freak phrases and law-books inside of a
stinkin’ court-room. The cards is shuffled and in the box, pardner, and
the game is started. If we’re due to win, we’ll win. If we’re due to
lose, we’ll lose. These things is all figgered out a thousand years
back. Come on, boy. Are you game?”
“Am I game?” Glenister’s nostrils dilated and his voice rose a tone. “Am
I game? I’m with you till the big cash-in, and Lord have mercy on any
man that blocks our game to-night.”
“We’ll need another hand to help us,” said Dextry. “Who can we get?”
At that moment, as though in answer, the door opened with the scant
ceremony that friends of the frontier are wont to observe, admitting the
attenuated, flapping, dome-crowned figure of Slapjack Simms, and Dextry
fell upon him with the hunger of a wolf.
* * * * *
It was midnight and over the dark walls of the valley peered a multitude
of stars, while away on the southern horizon there glowed a subdued
effulgence as though from hidden fires beneath the Gold God’s caldron,
or as though the phosphorescence of Bering had spread upward into the
skies. Although each night grew longer, it was not yet necessary to
light the men at work in the cuts. There were perhaps two hours in which
it was difficult to see at a distance, but the dawn came early, hence no
provision had been made for torches.
Five minutes before the hour the night-shift boss lowered the gates in
the dam, and, as the rush from the sluices subsided, his men quit work
and climbed the bluff to the mess tent. The dwellings of the Midas, as
has already been explained, sat back from the creek at a distance of a
city block, the workings being thus partially hidden under the brow of
the steep bank.
It is customary to leave a watchman in the pit during the noon and
midnight hours, not only to see that strangers preserve a neutral
attitude, but also to watch the waste-gates and water supply. The night
man of the Midas had been warned of his responsibility, and, knowing
that much gold lay in his keeping, was disposed to gaze on the
curious-minded with the sourness of suspicion. Therefore, as a man
leading a packhorse approached out of the gloom of the creek-trail, his
eyes were on him from the moment he appeared. The road wound along the
gravel of the bars and passed in proximity to the flumes. However, the
wayfarer paid no attention to them, and the watchman detected an
explanatory weariness in his slow gait.
“Some prospector getting in from a trip,” he thought.
The stranger stopped, scratched a match, and, as he undertook to light
his pipe, the observer caught the mahogany shine of a negro’s face. The
match sputtered out and then came impatient blasphemy as he searched for
another.
“Evenin’, sah! You-all oblige me with a match?” He addressed the watcher
on the bank above, and, without waiting a reply, began to climb upward.
No smoker on the trail will deny the luxury of a light to the most
humble, so as the negro gained his level the man reached forth to
accommodate him. Without warning, the black man leaped forward with the
ferocity of an animal and struck the other a fearful blow. The watchman
sank with a faint, startled cry, and the African dragged him out of
sight over the brow of the bank, where he rapidly tied him hand and
foot, stuffing a gag into his mouth. At the same moment two other
figures rounded the bend below and approached. They were mounted and
leading a third saddle-horse, as well as other pack-animals. Reaching
the workings, they dismounted. Then began a strange procedure, for one
man clambered upon the sluices and, with a pick, ripped out the riffles.
This was a matter of only a few seconds; then, seizing a shovel, he
transferred the concentrates which lay in the bottom of the boxes into
canvas sacks which his companion held. As each bag was filled, it was
tied and dumped into the cut. They treated but four boxes in this way,
leaving the lower two-thirds of the flume untouched, for Anvil Creek
gold is coarse and the heart of the clean-up lies where it is thrown in.
Gathering the sacks together, they lashed them upon the pack-animals,
then mounted the second string of sluices and began as before.
Throughout it all they worked with feverish haste and in unbroken
silence, every moment flashing quick glances at the figure of the
lookout who stood on the crest above, half dimmed in the shadow of a
willow clump. Judging by their rapidity and sureness, they were expert
miners.
From the tent came the voices of the night shift at table, and the faint
rattle of dishes, while the canvas walls glowed from the lights within
like great fire-flies hidden in the grass. The foreman, finishing his
meal, appeared at the door of the mess tent, and, pausing to accustom
his eyes to the gloom, peered perfunctorily towards the creek. The
watchman detached himself from the shadow, moving out into plain sight,
and the boss turned back. The two men below were now working on the
sluices which lay close under the bank and were thus hidden from the
tent.
* * * * *
McNamara’s description of Anvil Creek’s riches had fired Helen Chester
with the desire to witness a clean-up, so they had ridden out from town
in time for supper at the claim. She had not known whither he led her,
only understanding that provision for her entertainment would be made
with the superintendent’s wife. Upon recognizing the Midas, she had
endeavored to question him as to why her friends had been dispossessed,
and he had answered, as it seemed, straight and true.
The ground was in dispute, he said--another man claimed it--and while
the litigation pended he was in charge for the court, to see that
neither party received injury. He spoke adroitly, and it satisfied her
to have the proposition resolved into such simplicity.
She had come prepared to spend the night and witness the early morning
operation, so the receiver made the most of his opportunity. He showed
her over the workings, explaining the many things that were strange to
her. Not only was he in himself a fascinating figure to any woman, but
wherever he went men regarded him deferentially, and nothing affects a
woman’s judgment more promptly than this obvious sign of power. He spent
the evening with her, talking of his early days and the things he had
done in the West, his story matching the picturesqueness of her
canvas-walled quarters with their rough furnishings of skins and
blankets. Being a keen observer as well as a finished raconteur, he had
woven a spell of words about the girl, leaving her in a state of tumult
and indecision when at last, towards midnight, he retired to his own
tent. She knew to what end all this was working, and yet knew not what
her answer would be when the question came which lay behind it all. At
moments she felt the wonderful attraction of the man, and still there
was some distrust of him which she could not fathom. Again her thoughts
reverted to Glenister, the impetuous, and she compared the two, so
similar in some ways, so utterly opposed in others.
It was when she heard the night shift at their meal that she threw a
silken shawl about her head, stepped into the cool night, and picked her
way down towards the roar of the creek. “A breath of air and then to
bed,” she thought. She saw the tall figure of the watchman and made for
him. He seemed oddly interested in her approach, watching her very
closely, almost as though alarmed. It was doubtless because there were
so few women out here, or possibly on account of the lateness of the
hour. Away with conventions! This was the land of instinct and impulse.
She would talk to him. The man drew his hat more closely about his face
and moved off as she came up. Glenister had been in her thoughts a
moment since, and she now noted that here was another with the same
great, square shoulders and erect head. Then she saw with a start that
this one was a negro. He carried a Winchester and seemed to watch her
carefully, yet with indecision.
To express her interest and to break the silence, she questioned him,
but at the sound of her voice he stepped towards her and spoke roughly.
“What!”
Then he paused, and stammered in a strangely altered and unnatural
voice:
“Yass’m. I’m the watchman.”
She noted two other darkies at work below and was vaguely surprised, not
so much at their presence, as at the manner in which they moved, for
they seemed under stress of some great haste, running hither and yon.
She saw horses standing in the trail and sensed something indefinably
odd and alarming in the air. Turning to the man, she opened her mouth to
speak, when from the rank grass under her feet came a noise which set
her a-tingle, and at which her suspicions leaped full to the solution.
It was the groan of a man. Again he gave voice to his pain, and she knew
that she stood face to face with something sinister. Tales of sluice
robbers had come to her, and rumors of the daring raids into which men
were lured by the yellow sheen--and yet this was incredible. A hundred
men lay within sound of her voice; she could hear their laughter; one
was whistling a popular refrain. A quarter-mile away on every hand were
other camps; a scream from her would bring them all. Nonsense, this was
no sluice robbery--and then the man in the bushes below moaned for the
third time.
“What is that?” she said.
Without reply the negro lowered the muzzle of his rifle till it covered
her breast and at the same time she heard the double click of the
hammer.
“Keep still and don’t move,” he warned. “We’re desperate and we can’t
take any chances, Miss.”
“Oh, you are stealing the gold--”
She was wildly frightened, yet stood still while the lookout anxiously
divided his attention between her and the tents above until his
companions signalled him that they were through and the horses were
loaded. Then he spoke:
“I don’t know what to do with you, but I guess I’ll tie you up.”
“What!” she said.
“I’m going to tie and gag you so you can’t holler.”
“Oh, don’t you _dare_!” she cried, fiercely. “I’ll stand right here till
you’ve gone and I won’t scream. I promise.” She looked up at him
appealingly, at which he dipped his head, so that she caught only a
glimpse of his face, and then backed away.
“All right! Don’t try it, because I’ll be hidden in those bushes yonder
at the bend and I’ll keep you covered till the others are gone.” He
leaped down the bank, ran to the cavalcade, mounted quickly, and the
three lashed their horses into a run, disappearing up the trail around
the sharp curve. She heard the blows of their quirts as they whipped the
packhorses.
They were long out of sight before the girl moved or made sound,
although she knew that none of the three had paused at the bend. She
only stood and gazed, for as they galloped off she had heard the scrap
of a broken sentence. It was but one excited word, sounding through the
rattle of hoofs--her own name--“Helen”; and yet because of it she did
not voice the alarm, but rather began to piece together, bit by bit, the
strange points of this adventure. She recalled the outlines of her
captor with a wrinkle of perplexity. Her fright disappeared entirely,
giving place to intense excitement. “No, no--it can’t be--and yet I
wonder if it _is_!” she cried. “Oh, I wonder if it could be!” She
opened her lips to cry aloud, then hesitated. She started towards the
tents, then paused, and for many moments after the hoof-beats had died
out she stayed undecided. Surely she wished to give the signal, to force
the fierce pursuit. What meant this robbery, this defiance of the law,
of her uncle’s edicts and of McNamara? They were common thieves,
criminals, outlaws, these men, deserving punishment, and yet she
recalled a darker night, when she herself had sobbed and quivered with
the terrors of pursuit and two men had shielded her with their bodies.
She turned and sped towards the tents, bursting in through the canvas
door; instantly every man rose to his feet at sight of her pallid face,
her flashing eyes, and rumpled hair.
“Sluice robbers!” she cried, breathlessly. “Quick! A hold-up! The
watchman is hurt!”
A roar shook the night air, and the men poured out past her, while the
day shift came tumbling forth from every quarter in various stages of
undress.
“Where? Who did it? Where did they go?”
McNamara appeared among them, fierce and commanding, seeming to grasp
the situation intuitively, without explanation from her.
“Come on, men. We’ll run ’em down. Get out the horses. Quick!”
He was mounted even as he spoke, and others joined him. Then turning, he
waved his long arm up the valley towards the mountains. “Divide into
squads of five and cover the hills! Run down to Discovery, one of you,
and telephone to town for Voorhees and a posse.”
As they made ready to ride away, the girl cried:
“Stop! Not that way. They went _down_ the gulch--three negroes.”
She pointed out of the valley, towards the dim glow on the southern
horizon, and the cavalcade rode away into the gloom.